A new application has been launched which allows parents to control how and when children use their mobile phones to access the internet and social media sites.

The app from AlphaBlue is currently available for Android and BlackBerry phones. Once the app is downloaded, on to a child’s phone, parents can then log on to the AlphaBlue website to set the level of control. These controls allow them to restrict their child’s use of the internet and social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, during set time periods such as during school hours, late evenings and overnight.

The AlphaBlue website says its goal is “to give parents peace of mind and to help keep children safe from exposure to grooming, the internet, cyber bullying, high phone bills, not going to sleep at night, (and) distraction from classwork or homework”.                               (source : www.orange.co.uk)

Apps like this can be useful tools for parents however they can not and do not replace the need for e-Safety education.  Knowledge on how to keep safe whilst using the internet and mobile phones remains the most important element of e-Safety.  Children need to learn the skills to keep themselves safe so they can transfer these skills to any situation, whichever devise they are using and whichever filters or controls are or are not in use.

For further information on learning how to help keep children safe online click here for details of our e-Safety for parents and e-Safety for schools training courses.

At the ChildProtectionCompany.com we very much welcome all feedback;  hearing what customers think of our products helps us to continually improve our online training courses.

We have had a lot of schools use our e-Safety for schools training course over recent months and here are some of the comments we have received on this training course:

Very good – gave me more confidence, knowing I had a good understanding of e-Safety.

NM, Thomas Ferens Academy.

I found the training very useful in my role as ICT coordinator. It will serve as a basis for reviewing our e-Safety education looking at what is already in place and making changes as appropriate to ensure that our safeguarding is the best it can be.

MB, Christow Primary School.

I thought this course was excellent – easy to use and easy to understand. Thank you.

CA, Sponne School.

The e-Safety course was useful and now needs to be used to embed practice in school systems and as part of our wider training within school.  Another good course.

GD,Campion School.

As part of Ofsteds safeguarding inspections of schools inspectors will be asking if teachers and school staff have had training in e-Safety.

“How do you ensure that all staff receive appropriate online safety training that is relevant and regularly up to date?”

Ofsted Inspecting e-Safety, Sept 2012

The ChildProtectionCompany.com now provides an easy to use on-line e-Safety course specifically designed for the education sector.  The course includes an introduction to e-Safety and raises awareness of:

• The different types of technology
• The risks to children
• The importance of educating and empowering children
• The risk to you
• How to deal with e-Safety incidents

For more information see the e-Safety pages on our website.

All the e-Safety and child protection courses provided by ChildProtectionCompany.com are available to do on-line.  This means that courses are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year; for you to access at your convenience   So you can do them at work, at home (in your PJ’s if you like – no one will know!)  in the coffee shop; wherever you have internet access. As one satisfied customer said about the  combined Adult/child protection courses:

“I just wanted to let you know that your courses on this subject are excellent  informative , easy to follow and offer excellent value for money.  All sitting on my armchair ! No need to travel and sit through a 3 hour seminar…… Fantastic. “

VP, Dentist

Research by Internet security company ESET, which has been reported on by Female First,  shows children are missing out on e-Safety training. This has been found to be partly because parents lack confidence, feeling their children know more than they do.

The report shows that there is quite a difference between what children are actually doing on-line and what parents think they are doing.  Four in ten children were found to delete their browsing history,  to prevent parents seeing what websites they had been using, and 50% of children had lied about their age to access a website.

The Technical Director of ESET says parents are nervous and feel ill prepared to teach their children about on-line safety.

The new Parents e-Safety course, launched this month by the ChildProtectionCompany.com,  is designed to help parents understand how to help their children manage the risks of using the internet.  Click here for more details

e-Safety is not about ICT – it is about safeguarding children

Learning to drive is not about knowing the internal workings of a combustion engine; the same is true of e-safety.  Many shy away from e-safety thinking that they don’t have the technical knowledge to understand it.  Technology is not the problem (although arguably it is an enabler). Technology does not cause problems; behaviour, risk taking and lack of awareness cause problems.  e-Safety is about safeguarding the child.

If you’d like to know more have a look at our online e-Safety training course.

There is no formal definition of e-Safety; a quick Google search will return many results with individual opinions. Essentially e-Safety is about the education of young people to enjoy the safe use of technology.

But there are some important principles:

• e-Safety is about educating and empowering children and young people to enjoy the safe use of digital technologies
• e-Safety is about raising the awareness of risks and issues with adults so that they can talk to their children or students
• e-Safety includes the governance and liabilities within any establishment that has a responsibility for children, i.e. a school, youth centre, children’s home etc.
• e-Safety is not about computers or technology – it is about safeguarding. This is the most important principle to remember.

If you would like to know more about e-safety, why not come along to our e-Safety conference, which takes place on 6 Feb, 2013.

In the same way we teach our children how to cross the road safely and how to swim, it is imperative that we also teach children how to stay safe online. It is not sufficient to show the children a video or two and expect this to suffice; e-safety is partly about empowering the children; most importantly we should teach this as a life skill. The earlier children understand this life skill the more beneficial it will be.

Would you teach your child to drive if you can’t drive yourself? The same is true of e-safety. Everybody must understand this life skill; this includes all staff, voluteers, governing bodies and parents/guardians. In order to empower others and to be able to risk assess for yourself, you also need to have a good understanding of the risks and dangers.

The above is taken from the overview of the online e-Safety course provided by ChildProtectionCompany.com.

The age of the Internet has resulted in an explosion of digital communications technologies. The outcomes of this cannot be understated: the ability to carry out an operation from another part of the world; navigate a car using satellite technology previously only available to the military; remotely search for trapped persons after a disaster; talk for free with relatives on the opposite side of the world.

These same digital technologies have also transformed education, not just for use within ICT but also for every curriculum subject: using Google maps in Geography; collaborative working in English; digitally studying the human body in science and much more.

Unfortunately the free and easy use of digital communications, has also meant there are risks and dangers to both children and adults. ChildProtectionCompany.com provide an online training course which will introduce you to some of these risks and help you to understand where these risks come from.

It is important to remember the question, “what is appropriate?”; it is an impossible question to answer in general context, although there are some obvious examples: adult images, drug paraphernalia (unless in an educational context), bullying and hatred.

The Internet is worldwide, there is content of every conceivable and inconceivable subject that you can imagine. “What is appropriate” has many factors, i.e. what is the age of the person viewing the content? What country is the content hosted in? Is there a religious context which some may find offensive?

Today, a 138 page document has been published which is the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation. The Inquiry is being led by Sue Berelowitz, Deputy Children’s Commissioner and Chief Executive and this report is the first year’s findings of a planned two year inquiry.

Below are two short extracts from the Inquiry:

Extract 1 taken from page 22 – What prompted the OCC Inquiry: “Amid mounting concern about child sexual exploitation, and the inadequate responses to it described below, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner took the decision to get to the root of the problem, draw information together from disparate agencies, and to find ways of tackling it.

The OCC also became increasingly concerned about emerging information that children are being sexually exploited in both groups and gangs.”

Extract 2 taken from page 9 – Executive Summary: “Based on evidence submitted to the CSEGG Inquiry, at least 16,500 children were identified as being at risk of child sexual exploitation during one year and 2,409 children were confirmed as victims of sexual exploitation in gangs and groups during the 14-month period from August 2010 to October 2011.

Evidence to the Inquiry indicates that in any given year the actual number of children being abused is far greater than the 2,409 that have been confirmed. Interviews with children and young people, evidence collected during site visits and gathered at hearing sessions all indicated that many children who were sexually exploited either remained unseen by professionals or, even when known, were not recorded in the call for evidence submissions received by the OCC.

16,500 children from across England were identified as being at high risk of child sexual exploitation during the period April 2010-March 2011. This figure is based on children who displayed three or more signs of behaviour indicating they were at risk of child sexual exploitation.”

As a result of the findings, the Office for the Children’s Commission is now calling for urgent action to protect vulnerable children and is asking all agencies working with children to immediately ensure that their staff are made aware of the list of warning signs.

The ChildProtectionCompany.com runs online or face-to-face training courses covering child protection and vulnerable adult protection, either separately or as a combined course, as well as a new online e-Safety course.